Even for casual sports fans, it’s hard to ignore the number of options you have for watching just one sporting event these days. Take the 2024 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments, for example. The national championship game on the men’s side will air on TNT, TBS, and stream on Max, while the women’s championship will be broadcast on ABC and streamed on ESPN+. Sports rightsholders are doing their best to meet fans wherever they are, and as customers struggle to find which channel or streamer is carrying which sport a new question for providers comes into focus: how do they differentiate themselves from the competition as sports games become more available in more places? One popular way that broadcasters have increasingly embraced in recent years is the alternate broadcast.

• One recent survey found that 30% of fans have a hard time finding which channel or service is carrying a chosen game.
• The same survey found that 74% of fans want an augmented sports viewing experience with more features like alternate broadcasts.
• Potential new alternate streams like the a “Ted Lasso”-themed MLS broadcast or a “Ballers”-centered NFL stream are just waiting in the wings for providers.

The increased number of options for watching sports is a double-edged sword for fans. On the one hand, because of the proliferation of options, viewers have choices for watching games at multiple price points; for example, some teams like the Utah Jazz offer linear TV viewing options as well as in-market streaming services, allowing fans to watch one single game at a time.

On the other hand, this spread of availability can make it even harder for viewers to know which channel has the game they really want to see. An October 2023 survey from Altman Sports found that 59% of respondents said that accessibility issues kept them from watching live sports and that 30% of that segment specifically reported not knowing which channel or streaming service a game is on.

The scattering of games across multiple options is not done by accident, but it is not intended to confuse fans. Kiswe has helped teams like the Phoenix Suns create in-market streaming platforms of their own to reach fans, and its co-founder Wim Sweldens recently told Sportico that simulcasts are just about reaching as many types of customers, on as many different platforms, as possible.

“The goal is to reach as many fans as possible and to drive the economics for the team,” Sweldens said. “The casual fans, the hardcore fans, the people who want to consume every piece of content or the people who just occasionally watch, all the … different demographics, that’s ultimately the goal.”

What Can Streamers Do to Differentiate?

One way for streaming services to make it easier to tell where a specific game is available is to create exclusive alternative streams that fans can’t watch anywhere else. These types of broadcasts have been around for over a decade, but the boom on this front really began with the introduction of ESPN’s “ManningCast,” which accompanies “Monday Night Football” games. While the traditional broadcasts air on ESPN and sometimes ABC, Peyton and Eli Manning will discuss the game and chat with big-name football fans and stars on ESPN2 and occasionally ESPN+. Similarly, Amazon has created multiple alternate streams for its “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video.

The same Altman Sports survey found that 74% of fans said that augmenting the live media experience with immersive features like alternative broadcasts would make the watching experience more engaging. Adding more such broadcasts could significantly boost fan engagement for streamers, which would help cement them and their sports lineups in the minds of consumers.

But what new alternate streams could providers create? There are essentially limitless possibilities; for example, Apple’s MLS Season Pass could create an alternate stream for soccer games featuring cast members of the Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso,” which would help it promote both its streaming services at the same time. The legion of AFC Richmond fans would undoubtedly tune in to listen to Coach Beard break down an Inter Miami CF match.

When the joint venture streaming platform from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery launches this fall, there are myriad opportunities for creating a bespoke alternate stream. While we don’t yet know just how much overlap the programming from the various owners of the platform there will be, if everybody is playing nice, there would be a lot of fun options on the table. Could stars from HBO’s “Ballers” team up for an alternate stream of an NFL game on Fox on a Sunday afternoon? The NBA’s schedule-makers love putting LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on ABC, so why not spin up an alternate broadcast of a Lakers game featuring the cast of “Winning Time”?

Peacock has a wide variety of live sports, but apart from a stats-focused alternate stream of select English Premier League soccer games, it has not made a concerted effort to add diverse alternate broadcasts of games. Could it leverage older, but still highly popular properties like “The Office” or “Parks and Rec” to create a themed alternate stream of an NFL “Sunday Night Football” game or a NASCAR race?

The possibilities for the creation of new alternate sports broadcasts are essentially limitless. Customers are crying out for more ways to differentiate channels and streamers from each other as the practice of simulcasting sports events becomes more prevalent, and new, dedicated alternative streams can help providers stand out from their competitors in the eyes of viewers.